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Vietnam has an estimated 200,000 square miles of bamboo forests.
After Vietnam was defoliated by Agent Orange in the American War, bamboo was the first species to begin regenerating the forests.
Today, villagers in 29 provinces grow bamboo for domestic and export products.
An important bamboo for construction timber is bambusa stenostachya, or "tre gai", a clumping bamboo. Much of the tre gai bamboo comes from villages in Central Vietnam.
The tops of tre gai bamboo are used by chopstick factories, and the long, thick bottom poles usually ended up as scrap. Now Bamboo Technologies uses these sturdy, hard poles (10-14' long, 3"-4" diameter) to build houses.
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